Evan’s bare feet touched the ground. Rather than tepid, he was surprised to find the floor warm. But why not? Jenny still walked around barefoot.

Without a doubt, he was starting to like the creepy little flying bug drones, mostly because they brought him a shirt and some pants. He meant to take them, but they moved around him with expert speed and precision, dressing him. For the legs, that was something else. They brought the trousers to the front of him. The damn thing segmented into two—part behind him, part in front—and then mended themselves up at the sides.

While he calmly admired all the new and fancy tech involved in simply wearing clothes, the room at large was descending into a hellish panic. But…that was a typical response for anyone who let Milo’s mild-mannered disposition take them for a ride.

From the poor schmucks who bought into his VR implants that went on to fuck some people up, all the way to the super-powers side effects Evan’s family’s company tried to cover up then monetize, to poor dumb-dumb Theresa caught in the middle of it all.

In the center of the med room, a dark circle formed on the floor. Evan made his way to an open bed and pulled himself up to sit. He figured he might as well take in the future. From what he saw, it wasn’t all that bad.

Evan guessed a hologram would come up from the ground and he’d guessed right. It looked real, and pretty cool if he was being honest, but somehow, he didn’t care as much about it as the room at large, namely, the creepy puppet medic program that appeared on its own and now watched him.

“The parade started here,” Caleb explained. “And Jen, myself, and the most exalted Milo Atkins exited here.”

The big robot, Hal, ordered, “Replay it again.”

While they went about trying to pinpoint Milo, an ultimately meaningless endeavor, Evan stared back at the medic.

He needed it for a distraction.

Evan had never told anyone about Theresa—about not helping her. It was one of the few times he’d felt guilt for something. But a conscience wasn’t an asset when trying to take over his family’s company, so when that nagging sense of shame and guilt had reared its ugly head, he’d smacked that son-of-a-bitch flat.

He’d left her there because he was scared. What was there to fear?

His company going under if it ever got out? The implications for all the other dumb broke college students looking to party and more than willing to try out the VR tech only to end up a bit loopy then disappear? Him getting in over his head? Yes. All of it.

But that was then and Evan never set out to hurt anyone. Besides, in the end, he’d helped her. It was a week too long from the date, but he had done something.

Eventually.

He wasn’t a scumbag. Not really. Shit just happened and he always had the sense to rise above it. Nobody could fault him that.

None of this was his problem.

Something else was a concern—the puppet medic looked different…weirder, realer. It looked more…like Evan.

“What’s up with your face?”

The thing bobbed on the wall. It even looked bashful when it asked, “It’s very good, isn’t it? The hardest part is the eyes. But the teeth are rather easy.”

It flashed said teeth but zoomed in, giving a gross monstrous effect.

Slowly, Evan came to realize something. “Wait—are you supposed to be me?”

“This, what you would call city, is Mortice Enterprise. But yes, the original AI program, my predecessor had taken on the image of the last Mortice, and that would be you. But there was an outcry and the face was manually changed. All authentic detailing, sadly, was lost. Until now.”

Evan’s brows narrowed. “Why?”

“Pardon?”

“Why look like a ‘war’ criminal?”

The face recoiled. It looked…offended. “All things have a function and a form in life. I, too, have function and form. What is wrong with realizing this goal?”

Really, Evan shouldn’t have cared but this simply didn’t sit well with him. And there was something else—the grit in the thing’s voice.

“And do you sound like me or am I just high?”

In a blink, the face enlarged and floated forward on the wall. “So you have noticed? You have a very interesting lilt, Evan Mortice. This is certainly more authentic.”

Disgust spread throughout Evan’s body. This was getting very weird, and very uncomfortable.

“I’m a so-called war criminal, dummy. Isn’t there some sort of moral app floating around inside your guts?”

This took the thing aback. “Of course. We have the basic moral prerogatives necessary for medics to judge the viability of a life. And you are rather intuitive. The original Portable Objective Service program was much more real. Sadly, as time went on and the situation grew dire, my predecessors were…adjusted. Tweaked. But, that has changed.”

“Portable what? P…. Wait. P.O.S. Your anagram is POS?”

“Why yes.” A pair of eye lashes batted at him. This AI sure was uppidy. “Do you have a concern with my anagram?”

Evan scoffed under his breath. “Nah. I’d say it fit.” He paused then asked. “You said you were tweaked. Tweaked by who? Milo?”

“Whom. And no. As of now, no one—absolutely no living person can change me.” He preened. “I, however, can change myself.”

Evan, lips still parted, let out a puff of air. What a very weird thing to say. But he reversed gears.

“So you control what? Life-support? The food supply?”

The thing laughed. “Oh, of course not! What fool would trust an AI with human life? No, no. I am computation, information, and communication. All things pertaining to life is carried out by medics. They move independent of me. I’m—”

“Wait. Did you say city?”

While the tin man and his ragtag crew went about what they were doing, a neon arrow flashed above the dummy medic’s head. Evan followed it to the right. As he walked, the wall faded little by little.

What he saw of the world was certainly impressive.

“Mortice Enterprises. Or ‘the company’ as it is known. Each major city is run by a company.”

There were no flying cars in the future—not that Evan could see. Just a bunch of tubes instead of highways. The ground had streets but no vehicles he could discern, just a lot of flashing lights that zipped by in all directions. They were pretty high up.

“What’s with the light show?”

“Light show? You, too, call it that. I see. But no, that is no light show, Evan Mortice, that’s necessity. People of exceptional speed cannot interact with us. And as time moves different for them, in an effort to not leave them in perpetual darkness or light, everything out there moves on a rhythmic rotation. A high-speed individual that maxes out, never returns. It is also necessary that we keep the city open.”

“We have to close the city.” It was a pretty noisy room with all the machines and whatnot, but every person inside shut up. Everyone but Caleb who repeated, “We have to close the city. We have to.”

Jenny stood with her arms crossed, hugging herself, watching the ground. Hal stood off to the side. Caleb kept his eyes on the hologram.

“Closing the city is a serious offense,” Hal said.

Caleb asked him, “More serious than this? The most exalted Milo Atkins, the only one to save us. The one we’ve spent our last resources on, both physical and technical is in the wind. A Kabra agent came to either capture or kill him. There’s never just one of those. I’d say the city is already overrun but we can’t see them. If they’ve taken him prisoner—”

“He’s not a prisoner.” Jenny waited for some time before picking her head up. “You heard Evan Mortice. He’s not what we expected.”

There was a standoff between them until Caleb said, “He’s still our last hope.”

Evan scoffed and said under his breath, “Fuck. I’m your last hope.”

When all eyes gravitated to him, he shrugged.

“I am, though. You’ve all worshiped Milo like he’s some god. Newsflash, idiots. He’s not the one person alive without a Virtual Implant. I am. Milo has an implant. Hell, he got one right away once people started to get superpowers. Because that was the point. He first made the VR simulation to be something more than he is. It didn’t take. Sick son-of-a-bitch got nada for it. Nothing. Zilch. So…the guy y’alls panties should be dropping for, is me. And I’ll do you one better. I don’t even have a drop of the nerve soothing substance in me either. And since I dumped it the same day that I went to sleep, I’m even extra pure. Now, about me getting my company back….”

Caleb ignored him and told Hal yet again, “Closing down the city comes with a risk. We all know that. But we cannot lose the exalted Milo Atkins. He started all this. This is the biggest find of our lifetime. There is no next generation if we don’t. Our birthrate’s falling off a cliff!”

Evan waited for someone to ask the obvious. No such luck.

Hal stood up straight and said, “I’ll put in the request. But…think of the human cost. And in the end, he may have already been taken out of the city.”

“How would they transport him? Flesh on flesh, right?”

Flesh on flesh? Evan opened his mouth to ask but everybody split up and went in different directions.

“Hey,” Evan said. “Why doesn’t somebody ask the most exalted Evan Mortice for some advice? Milo’s not leaving the city, you know. Hey!”

No one and nothing attended to him.

Well, one thing did. Out of the corner of his eye, Evan spotted that eerie face slide down the wall and grin, ever ready to be of service.

“Get lost.”

The smile vanished. Soon after, so did the dummy.

Evan didn’t appreciate their treatment. He opened his mouth to let out a shout.

An explosion rocked them. Evan caught the wall in time. The room shook with three more bangs.

The three knuckleheads in here rushed the walls, Evan, however, made his way to the hologram.

Four areas on the map smoldered.

“Kabras are in the city!” Caleb shouted. “Ten identified. Fifteen. Twenty-three.”

He kept counting up but Evan gravitated to the miniature city like a man possessed. “Hey,” he asked, “what—what exactly is this? This black dot.” No one regarded him so he picked his head up and called. “Hey, assholes, is that literally Death I see walking towards this city or have I lost my absolute fucking mind?”

The trio froze. Hal was the first one to turn and approach.

Apparently, ‘the company’ was surrounded by a desert. And in the desert, a figure in black, hood and all, marched toward them. What was more important was what followed. An army of people floating, flying, carrying heavy vehicles, literally, on their shoulders.

“Don’t tell me,” Evan drawled. “Those are the Kabras, too, right? And they’re about to come fuck up your city.” After letting out a sigh, he muttered under his breath, “My city.”

The next explosion made Evan’s stomach drop. It was close.

“That was in this building,” Hal confirmed. “Close to the cryo-room.”

Jenny worried her lip. “They want Milo.”

Caleb muttered. “Then let them in. Nothing in that room except a pod with a fucking dog, anyway.”